Credit crunch and hiked-up prices force pubs to ditch Sky subscriptions
Monday, August 18th, 2008
Crunch time for local boozers
Football fans hoping to catch a glimpse of Premier League action at their local this season may be in for a disappointment as thousands of pubs and bars up and down the land ditch their Sky subscriptions.
According to the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, which represents the interests of pubs nationally, the soaring cost of Sky television combined with increased overheads and fewer customers has resulted in 20% of pubs abandoning their subscriptions to the service over the last five years. Pubs currently pay £13,000 a year for a subscription.
“Watching a big game in the local with a group of friends is as close to being there as you can get,” said Nick Bish, ALMR’s Chief Executive. “It’s also the only place fans can watch live Premiership action for free. This pleasure is being threatened by Sky’s relentless price rises.”
The trade group says that the number of pubs ditching their Sky subscriptions almost exactly mirrors the price rises that Sky has so far imposed, and predicts that many more bars will opt out of the service in the next two weeks, since Sky’s commercial customers can only cancel their subscription in the month of August.
Other pubs have hiked up the price of beer in order to cover the rising price of a subscription. “You have to sell a lot of beer to cover this extra cost so in these difficult economic times businesses are having to pass this on,” explained Bish.
However, Sky says that its subscription charge has remained the same since September 2007; financial problems exacerbated by both the credit crunch and the smoking ban mean that many pubs cannot afford to pay for a subscription.
